Gaston sniper claimed second gunman fired shots

Zachariah Blanton is serving a 42-year prison sentence for shooting two people on Interstate 65 in 2006

5:59 PM,
Oct. 7, 2012

Zachariah C.J. Blanton, then 18, is led to court for sentencing in December 2007 for fatally shooting a New Albany man from an Interstate 65 overpass. The Gaston resident pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, a Class A felony, and was sentenced to 42 years in prison.

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More than a year after he pleaded guilty to the sniper killing of a southern Indiana man, Gaston resident Zachariah Blanton maintained he had been joined on an interstate overpass by a second gunman that deadly summer night in 2006.

Blanton, now 23, is serving a 42-year prison term imposed in December 2007, 17 months after he used his hunting rifle, from an overpass near Seymour, to shoot two occupants of pickup trucks traveling on Interstate 65.

One of his victims, 40-year-old Jerry Ross of New Albany, was fatally shot in the head. An Iowa man traveling in another truck was also hit by gunfire, ...